This lively, accessible book reveals the character - and timeliness - of Alexander Pope's thinking and art. G. Douglas Atkins focuses on the religious position of a poet who would not abandon the Roman Catholic Church. In our own highly partisan culture, such a position offers an important example. Bringing his expertise in religion and literature to bear, Atkins establishes that Pope was, as an anti-sectarian, not a Deist but a Catholic, a layman, and essayist. Through comparison with John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, and T.E. Eliot, this study sheds new light on 'The Universal Prayer,' 'An Essay on Criticism,' Moral Essays, and the four-part Dunciad. Ultimately, Pope emerges as a religious poet of the first rank.